I was sitting this morning at a business breakfast, which I must confess I detest, not the events, but inhuman start times. As after rising at 5am and driving for an hour and a half through traffic, my brain literally kicks into gear only after my third coffee.

Surely we can make these a ‘business brunch’, particularly for those whom are already sleep deprived due to the parenting duties of a child under 3… Although I do digress and will look to kick that petition off at a later date.

The event took a Trumpism’ word for its title, which was based around taking your business from ‘Good to Great’ and the 4 speakers duly delivered ideas around the threats to holding the status quo and the importance of growth.

In general the solutions being put forward hit the mark with the audience, with many in the room scribbling notes as each speaker explored differing elements from social media marketing, direct selling, business turnaround and the importance of growth.

As I sat back and nibbled through my soggy scrambled eggs and third cup of coffee and tuned into each speaker, it occurred to me that not only at this event, but at so many like events, a core element of marketing is overlooked.

We hear about using LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram etc… to promote your brand, engaging sales staff to ignite your sales, AdWords to drive business to you and mentoring and coaching to get your business on the right track.

Ultimately all speaker’s stories, no matter how entertaining, always falls back to the one thing every business owner wants, and that is more clients.

What is generally missing from these discussions are the foundation stones on which each business should have to give it the best chance of finding and communicating to these potentials.

Regardless of the product, whether it be services, retail or manufacturing, identifying the most likely demographics of your potential clients and where they are most likely to source their media, whether that be social or traditional, from is key.

Once identified, the creation of consistent and effective key messaging which has been built specifically to cut-through to this audience is critical, as it is the repetition of this message that will create reputational and brand awareness amongst your preferred audience.

This messaging should be prevalent everywhere you are, so regardless of how your audience enters your world, whether that be through your landing page, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, television, radio etc… It all interconnects and makes sense to them.

When it comes to how we market what we do, understanding our audience and getting our messaging right should sit as the cornerstone of all that we do, yet so often I come across confused online corporate and business profiles that make little sense and deter potential clients from seeking further information.

Given this, it is little wonder that the average stay on any landing page is less than a minute.

Now I am not suggesting that such disconnects are the fault of these type of events, as much as I would like to blame it on networking breakfasts, as each presenter is rightly always looking to promote their product/service solutions.

What I am saying is that the presenters in their efforts to display their skills do not create an awareness around the importance of getting our online presences right before we head out onto the social, traditional media or direct marketing push.

As someone who looks to create opportunity for talented individuals and their businesses to be promoted through high profile programs or publications, reviewing the online presence of my clients is the very first step that is taken.

Yes, my focus could be on my end product and that is to create an interesting yarn and ‘pitch it in’, with success being the pick-up by media and say, “well that’s my job done.”

The question then is, am I really doing my job as a communication specialist if that is all I do?

No I do not believe so. Instead I take a different approach and say to my clients, “let’s get your foundations in place, your messaging on point, products perfect and call to actions right before we take a single step towards marketing.”

Why?

Because I want my clients to maximise every opportunity out of their marketing, helping them to build an online community of interest whom become happy consumers of whatever products and services that are put forward to them.

This to me is the true measure of success for my clients, not so much where or how many times they appeared, but what is the return to them for their efforts to externally market what they do.